Contest winners Destiny and The Guardians we need you to send us a mail with your contact info so we can get your prizes on your way.

Mail to either Nokturn or Seridove.

Nope, no weekly wrap up today (Seridove's interview covers it better than I could).

What you get is even hotter, steamier and..........expansion-ier? Yes that's right, we're talking about an expansion pack for Age of Conan. Funcom teased audiences at Leipzig Games Convention today and announced the development status of the upcoming expansion. But, the actual release was a bit light on information, and long on speculation. Funcom only released a few pictures of concept art for the new expansion, which will feature an all new playable region, (By that, as we understand it, a region the size of Aquilonia, Cimmeria, Stygia, etc.) which potentially means a new playable race and new capital hub city. This could have huge implications in that it would raise the number of PVP battlekeeps significantly.

At the same time, Funcom also outlined their future changes for the last months of the year. Tarantia Commons will be a lvl 40+ faction based area where you can do missions for various gangs. The Dolmen is a lvl 50+ region where you can do quests involving Frost Giants (looks like both killing and helping them), and do some cool puzzle based quests. The Black Castle is getting traps, puzzles, and bosses, in supposedly a Raiders of the Lost Ark style. Should be quite interesting. House of Crom will be a lvl 80 group dungeon, and apparently not instanced (or designed for raids to go through but split up into groups, we're not sure), because it is described as being gigantic and allowing multiple groups at once. Finally, we're getting new epic armor sets for each class, including ones from PVP achievements. Oh and Direct X 10 content is still on its way.

So that's the wrapup. It looks like we're going to have a pretty sweet year. Stay tuned for more info as we get it.

Today's screenshot of the week comes to us from the Dagoth server. As he sits and ponders, one has to wonder..is that a sauna he's sitting in?

Check out our player submitted screenshot gallery here!

Ever wanted to work in the game industry? Well now is your chance: Stratics is currently hiring Web Developers! Stratics is your gateway to opportunities within the Massively Multiplayer field. Many of our staff move on to well-paid positions within respected development houses. Now is your opportunity!

Applicants should have the following skills:

• Drupal CMS
• vBulletin (create and/or add plugins via the plugin system)
• php 5 with OOP
• Basic HTML
• Basic Ajax
• Ability to make, modify, and add java scripts

This is a paid position. Interested applicants should email: directors@stratics.com and include a copy of, or link to, your resume and any applicable references.

Stratics (www.stratics.com): Founded in Sacramento, California during the Autumn of 1997, Stratics became the world's first content-driven Massively Multiplayer network. Begun as a personal homepage dedicated to Electronic Art's "Ultima Online", Stratics has grown over time into a sprawling treasure trove of information and community services dedicated specifically to interactive persistent world environments. Stratics currently serves millions of unique monthly visitors and provides official site and forum hosting to multiple Massively Multiplayer development houses.

Begin your endeavor today!

After a little break, we are back on track with our weekly topics! Today, we want to know your thoughts on exploits. Are there too many in the game? Are those who use exploits being punished accordingly? We want to know your thoughts! Stop by our poll and sound off!

This week's "Topic of the Week" was roleplaying. Love it or hate it, roleplaying is an integral part of games like Age of Conan. I mean, it's an entire 1/3rd of the acronym MMORPG (RP = Roleplaying). But does that translate into being a third of your time in Age of Conan? Prepare for a wild and tumultuous descent (yes, I've always wanted to say tumultuous in a news post) into the world of funny math. If RP is 1/3rd of the acronym MMORPG, it should be 1/3rd of the game itself. Since Age of Conan is an MMORPG, ergo, 1/3rd of the game should be roleplaying. But how long is that?

So in preparation for this post, I dug up an old quote from Funcom saying that it averages 250 hours or so of play time to reach level 80. I'm a pretty casual player, so I'll assume that's pretty accurate, especially when compared to powerlevelling services advertising around 7.5 day grinds to 80. (Assuming they grind 24 hours a day, that's just shy of 200 hours, give or take, so an extra 50 hours "casual penalty" seems right). 1/3rd of 250 is about 83 or so. We'll round that to 80.

Most importantly, before you read any farther, know that I am probably using a different version of roleplaying than most people. I'm not limiting it to just "Hail worldy traveler. Have ye some desire to quest with mine party?" crap. I'm also including anything that makes you feel like you're part of the universe of Conan; that you are invested in the outcome of your character. That's TRUE roleplaying, and that's the kind that most people will experience, since very few of us are the "Hail worldy traveler..." kinds.

Does Age of Conan really provide 80 hours worth of roleplaying on your way to level 80? I could argue that it actually does, or at least comes close for a two intertwined reasons: Quests and NPC's. You could be like me and not give two hoots about the Conan universe and get your roleplaying money's worth out of NPC's and quests. It probably take most people between 5 and 10 hours to get out of Tortage. I could argue that the entire island of Tortage is a roleplaying experience. When your first experience in the game (aside from a crusty old man waking you up and telling you to kill some fat guy) is a hot blonde chick chained up by all fours, and offers to repay you in sex (or blood, as it may be), that's a story telling experience that you just don't see too often in MMORPGs. Too often the developers forget to tell a story, or get so caught up in the pretentiousness of their universe that they forget that most people are there for the game, and not because they want to "live" in a virtual setting of the developer's choice.

That's where Age of Conan excells. Even when the quests are as simple as "fetch this" or "Kill X of Y", they're done in an engaging way. "Burn my hut and fishing boat so the Nemedian invaders can't use it!" How often, other than Team Fortress 2, does a game really let you indulge your pyromaniac side by destroying people's property AND reward you for it?

So where does roleplaying fall flat? PVE Keeps. Frankly, I just don't see the point in them. They sit around, but don't entice you to sit around in them. Also, while AoC deserves credit for maintaining a generally more mature audience than many other games, I shouldn't have to close out the chat windows for the region that I am in, just to avoid hearing twelve year olds scream racial obscenities, and pretend they have kickass systems that they obviously don't have.

Back to the math. I think many people can probably spend 10-20 hours in Tortage their first play through. Let's call it 20 for the sake of generosity. We're up to 20 hours of a roleplay experience. Then they dip out and go to the racial capital. There's probably another 4-5 hours worth of RP to do around here as well (Fabio's princess ring a bell?). Then, whether it be battling the Nemedians in Tarantia, Sanctum runs and showering in the blood fountain, finding the beast at the bottom of the swamp in Stygia, playing with Chicken Handler, etc, there is a good 20-30 hours worth of roleplaying content to do in the early game. Throw in another 4-5 hours worth of Destiny Quests at various levels, and we're more than halfway there. Toss in some PVP interaction, and some decently cool raid locations, and boom. You've got 80 hours worth of roleplay content.

Ok, fuzzy math time over. Now, arguably an MMORPG should be 100% roleplaying, because you should be truly immersed. But we all know that doesn't happen. It's just my point of view, but RP is one of the things that I think Conan does quite well, and although there is clearly room for improvement, Conan will certainly please RP fanatics for a good 80 hours or more. Not many singleplayer RPG games can say that. Now excuse me, I need to go to the noble district, some young upstarts are robbing my villa...

"Age of Conan" launched in May this year and immediately topped sales charts around the world. It has received more than thirty magazine covers and more than fifteen major awards, including numerous "Best MMO of E3" awards and the "Best Online Game of Show" award at GC 2007. The game has received numerous glowing reviews, including a 9.4 score from US website GameZone. "Age of Conan" is a key title in Microsoft's Games for Windows line-up, as well as a showcase title for nVidia thanks to its jaw-dropping graphics.

All entries received were so incredible we had our work cut out for us! However, we did manage to narrow it down to the top ten PLUS a grand prize winner.

Congratulations to:

Destiny

Blackhand

Lux et Veritas

The Guardians

The Celts

Lux et Veritas

Local 3305

Rage

Fist of Crom

The Guardians

• a copy of the Official Age of Conan Soundtrack,
• a three month game key which includes all virtual items ( drinking cape, experience gain ring, mammoth mount, mammoth bag, and more!)
• and a box copy of the game!

 

Our Grand Prize Winner was selected based on overall creativity. Their incorporation of a recruitment poster on a bulletin board (complete with several other "game themed" postings) was incredible.

 



Congratulations to The Scarlet Citadel! The creator of their recruitment poster will win all of the items mentioned above PLUS an Ideazon Game Pack and a full write up on your guild on the front page of AoC Stratics which will also be headlined on the Official AoC Community Site!

The above winners will be receiving emails from me by tomorrow afternoon. If you are listed as a winner and have not received an email confirming your entry as a winner, please feel free to contact me at: seridove@stratics.com. Thank you to everyone who entered...and see you in game!

In this week's guild spotlight, we bring you Retribution from the Scourge pvp server, proving that underdogs are here to stay, and they know the secret to avoid being ganked (mostly).

Stratics: When did Retribution form, both as a whole and on Scourge?

Vodka: Retribution was formed on Scourge on AoC release day (under a different name however) by a group of MMO friends and real-life friends from different games, a week or two into the game (after a merger with another guild) the name Retribution was made. For the first month or so after the guild was created, it was going through constant reformation and new faces joining and old faces leaving, but at it's current state, Retribution has a very strong member base with quality officers/GM's leading the guild into a positive direction, which hopefully won't end with just Age of Conan.

Read the full interview here.

When a massively multiplayer online roleplay game (MMORPG) releases, there always seems to be a lot of discussion (and most of it heated) regarding roleplay. Are there enough roleplay servers? Are the roleplay rules enforced? Why roleplay? Usually these arguments center around just why this game exists in the first place and accusations of intolerance on both sides.

What do you think about roleplay? Do you think it's dead? Dying? Necessary to maintain the fantasy that these MMORPG games offer? Vote in our poll and comment on our forums!